I am excited! Not just about the fact that Forrester's Marketing Forum is just around the corner. I am excited because I just got to spend some time with Ross Martin, the energetic executive vice president (EVP) of MTV Scratch. His team is a center of innovation at MTV for helping marketers connect with millenials, and his enthusiasm for the next digital decade is palpable. If you are coming to the Forum in San Francisco next week, you will get to hear Ross and his client and counterpart Jim Trebilcock, CMO at Dr. Pepper Snapple (DPS) Group, talk about the nationwide launch of Sun Drop soda that kicked off a few weeks ago.

Not to spoil that story, here are some of the things Ross and I discussed about the future of marketing:

DC: Given what you have done with DPS, what do you see as the future agency model? Can media companies replace agencies?

RM: We see new and inspiring work from agencies every day and have been lucky to collaborate with some great partners. Much has been said about the challenges agencies face with so many new models emerging. We believe these new models will continue to evolve, as agencies large and small pursue new ways to serve their clients.

Great agencies will look to capitalize on the strengths of media companies in both traditional and nontraditional ways — from ad sales and integrated marketing to the kinds of services Scratch offers, such as design and product planning, retail activation, creative execution, social media, marketing strategy, and more.

This year's theme of the Customer Intelligence talks is "Accelerating Intelligence: How Marketers Leverage Customer Intelligence To Drive Decision Making." We think this content aligns with Customer Intelligence professionals' interests and goals and the sessions will deliver actionable insight from our star CI analysts. We've published a lot of great research recently and are excited to share it at the forum. Here's what our team will present at the forum:

Sri Sridharan will speak on How To Enhance Your Marketing With Improved Customer Segmentation.

There are only three weeks left until Forrester’s Marketing Forum, and the excitement surrounding this event is growing exponentially. Our focus this year is on how companies must radically shift their marketing practices to account for the myriad of new methods and media that people use to engage with a company and its brands and products. Our goal is to help you learn how to adjust to this new digital world we call the Splinternet.

In classic Forrester style, we run our presentation tracks to cater to each of the roles we serve within the marketing and strategy organization. For the market insights (MI) professional track, my colleagues Tamara Barber and Jackie Anderson have prepared some great content, starting first with Tamara’s take on the future of the MI department and then shifting to the awesome panel of speakers Jackie has lined up on what youth research can teach us about 21st century market insights. Next up for our track, I will walk you through some cool, emerging, and innovative research methodologies that you can use to understand this new type of customer.